Jurriaan Molenaar

*1968

Work

Portiek (Porch)

2020 80 x 110 cm Acrylic on linnen

Den Haag Centraal

2020 80 x 220 cm Acrylic on linnen

Wholetrain

2019 100 x 150 cm Acrylic on canvas

Laantje

2018 100 x 150 cm Acrylic on canvas

Port la Nouvelle

2018 100 x 180 cm Acrylic on canvas

Landschap met twee bomen

2015 100 x 150 cm Acrylic on canvas

Biography of Jurriaan Molenaar

Jurriaan Molenaar (*1968) paints architecture: residential boulevards, industrial areas, banks and offices. Often empty spaces that offer a view to even more emptiness. A clear fascination can be recognized for the work of architects such as Le Corbusier, Mies van der Rohe and their interaction with the relationship between inside and outside. For Molenaar, establishing connections between these two elements is essential. To achieve his goal, he uses sober, muted colors, labyrinthine perspectives, razor-sharp lines and an almost invisible brush.

He himself calls his way of painting "constructed realism", with no other storyline missing. He says: "In my 'buildings' the 'visitor' is given the silence and space as a gift. Architecture is not much more than walls and holes. But a wall has a double psychological charge: it insulates you and also offers protection. With a hole it's just like that: you can peek through it, but can also be looked at. I want to show all of that in my work. ”

The studio of Jurriaan Molenaar is extremely neat, the walls clean and straight, his large worktable tidy. On the floor are hundreds of pots of pigment, a sea of colour almost incongruous in this austere 'architecture studio'. Line, light and space define the image in the paintings of Jurriaan Molenaar.

This 'science-man' has mastered the laws of perspective and geometry down to the finest details. Windows in a wall, a swimming pool, an open door. They are like tests in traditional geometry with the complication of different vanishing points. Molenaar looks for leeway in the geometry, leeway in the perspective and the vanishing points, without, however, violating these. At first sight very realistically represented, further insight reveals that there is nevertheless a slight torsion in the shape of the swimming pool and the aspect of the window in the wall is almost implausible; leeway in what seems real. In Molenaar’s paintings colours are restrained and monochrome. In order to suggest depth or light he uses no changes of tone or colour. The areas of colour are, however, painted with extreme precision, and also remarkable sensitivity. And this is where the warmth lies, the poetry, for the contemplative viewer.

Exhibitions

Jurriaan Molenaar. Absence

10 December 2022 - 21 January 2023

Reality Pictured 2.0

29 September - 23 October 2021

Reality Pictured

June 3 - 20, 2021

Jan Andriesse, Piet Moget and Jurriaan Molenaar

12 September - 10 October 2015

after zero

12 November - 3 December 2011

Publications

Borzo Publication | Newsletter 71
Borzo Publication | Newsletter 44
Borzo Publication | Newsletter 25